Leave router switched on 24/7 ?

I understand from reading lots of reviews and reports that the problem
some people have found with many routers is that they have overheated .
. and died. So while I have positioned mine upright and with plenty
of air around it, I am wondering if its not silly to leave it constantly
plugged in - with all its lights on and other parts receiving current
too. It's so much easier to leave it on all the time though.

I was wondering what most of you do.

Thanks.

Eddy.

Eddy wrote:

> I understand from reading lots of reviews and reports that the problem
> some people have found with many routers is that they have overheated .
> . . and died. So while I have positioned mine upright and with plenty
> of air around it, I am wondering if its not silly to leave it constantly
> plugged in - with all its lights on and other parts receiving current
> too. It's so much easier to leave it on all the time though.
>
> I was wondering what most of you do.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Eddy.

I had a Linksys that was on 24/7. It died. Its replacement gets turned off
every night. It's still OK.

There is no way to prove a connection between those two situations, but it's
so trivial to arrange sockets and extension leads so that you only need to
flick one switch to kill everything that it seems silly not to!

Chris

--
Remove prejudice to reply.

In article <84Xhk.1522$(E-Mail Removed)2>, Eddy says...
> I understand from reading lots of reviews and reports that the problem
> some people have found with many routers is that they have overheated .
> . and died. So while I have positioned mine upright and with plenty
> of air around it, I am wondering if its not silly to leave it constantly
> plugged in - with all its lights on and other parts receiving current
> too. It's so much easier to leave it on all the time though.
>
> I was wondering what most of you do.
>
Netgear DG834GT has currently been on 24/7 for just short of 3 years
save powercuts.


--
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't
looking good either. - Scott Adams

In article <84Xhk.1522$(E-Mail Removed)2>, Eddy
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>I understand from reading lots of reviews and reports that the problem
>some people have found with many routers is that they have overheated .
> . and died. So while I have positioned mine upright and with plenty
>of air around it, I am wondering if its not silly to leave it constantly
>plugged in - with all its lights on and other parts receiving current
>too. It's so much easier to leave it on all the time though.
>
>I was wondering what most of you do.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Eddy.
>

I look after about a dozen sites with Netgear DG834s. There are all on
24x7x365.

I have installed them into dozens more where I do not have a continued
liaison with the site, but again I am unaware of any that get turned
off.

Yes, I have had failures but not in the first 3 years. I swapped out
some of the original 834 earlier in the year that had been in continuous
operation for about 7 years.

My two ADSL routers do not get switched off, nor do any of my Netgear
switches.


BR
Don C

Eddy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I understand from reading lots of reviews and reports that the problem
> some people have found with many routers is that they have overheated .
> . and died.

Mine (a SAR110 aka Globespan Virata) stays on 24x7. My mother's one
(a Netgear of some flavour) keels over after about 2 days of continuous
uptime and has to be power-cycled. We've solved that problem by putting
it on a mains timer that switches it off from around midnight to 6am
each night. Saves a little power, too.

Chris

Eddy wrote:
It's so much easier to leave it on all the time though.

I've just installed a Sky broadband service for someone. The manual for
the Sagem router states the advantage of the power switch - in that the
item can be switched off when not in use to reduce the carbon footprint.

If the person I've just installed the modem did that and lost the
connection or had something else go wrong,. I'd dump a whole lot of
carbon into the atmosphere just going over to their place to fix it.

So on it stays ...

--
Adrian C

Thanks for all responses up till now. Good to hear that NetGears are
surviving 3 years while being on 24/7.

However, the idea of installing a timer between the router's adaptor and
the socket sounds like a good one, to give it at least 8 hours' rest a
day.

I don't suppose it aggravates or slowly damages a router to switch its
power off every night, does it? At the moment I have my motherboard,
monitor, and phone plugs (the ones that must all be on at the same time)
arranged in surge protector so that each monring I just turn on the
tower & the monitor. I guess having to flick the surge-protector's
switch too wouldn't be too much of a burden. What I fear is the router
not finding all those precious settings each morning and giving me hell!

Eddy.

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:41:34 +0100
Eddy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Thanks for all responses up till now. Good to hear that NetGears are
> surviving 3 years while being on 24/7.
>
> However, the idea of installing a timer between the router's adaptor
> and the socket sounds like a good one, to give it at least 8 hours'
> rest a day.
>
> I don't suppose it aggravates or slowly damages a router to switch its
> power off every night, does it?

I think electronic equipment is more likely to exhibit failure at
start-up than any other time, either because of current surge or
because a contact or component has developed a fault that doesn't
show up when it's warm.

In message <jj2ik.26488$(E-Mail Removed)2>, Eddy
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Thanks for all responses up till now. Good to hear that NetGears are
>surviving 3 years while being on 24/7.
>
>However, the idea of installing a timer between the router's adaptor and
>the socket sounds like a good one, to give it at least 8 hours' rest a
>day.

I'm considering a change to the systems here. I'm currently running a PC
and router 24x7, the PC is used as a file-server. What I am thinking of
doing is to use the BIOS settings to wake the server up early in the
morning and program it to shut down automatically at night. If I plugged
the server and other stuff into a smart power-strip I could get the
router and printer etc to switch off at the same time.

There is always the possibility that the server won't reconnect when
it's powered up, but that's never happened yet.


--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author.

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:38:36 +0100
Bernard Peek <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> In message <jj2ik.26488$(E-Mail Removed)2>, Eddy
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> >Thanks for all responses up till now. Good to hear that NetGears are
> >surviving 3 years while being on 24/7.
> >
> >However, the idea of installing a timer between the router's adaptor
> >and the socket sounds like a good one, to give it at least 8 hours'
> >rest a day.
>
> I'm considering a change to the systems here. I'm currently running a
> PC and router 24x7, the PC is used as a file-server. What I am
> thinking of doing is to use the BIOS settings to wake the server up
> early in the morning and program it to shut down automatically at
> night.

Why not use wake on LAN, and hibernate after a period of inactivity?